Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/180

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��near the east side, and an abundant supply a little way down the hill. The entrance was at the north- west corner, by a causeway across the ditches, the banks being raised slightly to command it on either side. 4 The arrangement of the old parishes about it was curious, and can scarcely be fortuitous. The work was in Ockley, which was also outside it to the south-east. Ewhurst was bounded by the works on the south-west. Shiere enveloped it to the north- west, north, and east, bounded by its ditches. But across a strip of 200 yds. of Shiere on the east were three patches of Ewhurst, Cranleigh, and the far- distant Ockham, and just outside these the old parish of Abinger. An archer on the banks in Ockley parish could have shot into four other parishes with ease, and nearly into Abinger. The bits of Ewhurst, Cranleigh, and Ockham were on habitable ground, with wood and water.

The visitor to Holmbury Hill is not usually interested in the banks and ditches as his first object. It commands what may fairly challenge the place of the finest view in Surrey. The whole expanse of the Weald, with the South Downs as a background, from Portsdown Hill to Lewes ; the adjacent range of sand hills, with Leith Hill forming a half distance on the one hand and Pitch Hill on the other ; the Hindhead range, with Hampshire behind it, crossing the western distance ; the chalk hills to the north and the country beyond them offer a panoramic view only surpassed by that from Leith Hill, which, 100 ft. higher, here cuts off the country to the east. But the growth of trees on the back of Leith Hill intercepts the sight northward, except from the top of the tower. The immediate foreground to Holmbury Hill is more broken and picturesque. The Pilgrims' Way from Winchester to Canterbury passes north of the parish at the foot of the North Downs.

Close to the west end of Abinger Church, by the farm which was the old manor-house of Abinger, is a mound which seems to have been raised from a ditch round it, part of which remains as a pond. It is marked on the Ordnance map (6-in.) as a barrow ; but it is large for a barrow, and perhaps not too small for a fortress a mota, standing, as often happened, close by the church. It has never been explored.

At Abinger Cross Ways is a fine old brick house, dating from the latter half of the lyth century. Abinger Hatch, the well-known inn, has ancient features, and there are many picturesque farms and cottages, especially to the south, in the Weald.

Abinger Hall, under the chalk down in the north of the parish, has succeeded a small house called Daniells belonging to a family named Dibble, many of whom occur in the Parish Registers. It was bought by the Dowager Countess of Donegal after the death of her husband in the War of the Spanish Succession, 1 706, and she resided here 'during her son's minority," which terminated in 1716. It was in the hands of her grandson, John Chichester, whose heir was his elder brother Arthur, first Marquis and fifth Earl of Donegal, who about 1783 sold it with 1 6 acres of land to Captain Pitts of the Engineers, who had previously bought other land in the neighbourhood.' He rebuilt the house, then called Paddington House,

��on the site of the present cricket ground. This house was built in 1783." Captain Pitts sold it in 1797 to Commodore Robinson of the H.E.I.C. Marine Service, who died in 1803.' His executors sold it to Mr. Shardon, who died in l8lo. 10 In 1 8 14 it was bought by Sir James Scarlett, who became chief baron of the Exchequer, was created Lord Abinger, and died 1844. The third Lord Abinger sold it in 1867 to Mr. Gwynne, who sold it to Thomas Farrer, subsequently Lord Farrer, in 1869. He built the present Abinger Hall in 1872. The second Lord Farrer now resides there.

At the north-eastern edge of Pasture Wood, adjoin- ing the Common, is a house called Parkhurst, which in 1766 belonged to John Spence, "formerly of Wandsworth, Dyer," who sold it in that year to Richard Durnford, of Gracechurch Street, pin-maker. He in the year 1799 sold the property to Charles Lynd, of Berners Street, from whom it passed to his nephew and heir, Charles Lynd, of Belfast, and was by him conveyed in 1786 to the Right Honourable George Lord Macartney, whose greatest service was that of going on the first embassy to China in 1792. In 1795 he sold Parkhurst to William Philip Perrin, who partly rebuilt and enlarged the house, and with great public spirit made good the road hereabout at his expense. 11 On Mr. Perrin's death in 1820 he left Parkhurst to his nephew, Sir Henry FitzHerbert, by whom in 1838 it was sold to Mr. Edmund Lomax, of Netley Park, Shiere, who had resided at Parkhurst since before 1827. Mr. Lomax died in 1847, leaving the estate to his daughter, Mrs. Peter Scarlett, from whom it passed to her son, Colonel Leopold Scarlett. He in 1884 sold the property to Colonel T. H. Lewin, its present owner, who considerably enlarged the house and gardens. There is a priest's hiding-place in the north-west corner of the older portion of the house.

Parkhurst is remarkable for possessing the first larch trees introduced into the south of England. Tradition has it that the seedlings were sent to Lord Macartney, the then owner of Parkhurst, by John, Duke of Atholl, in 1780. The trees stand in the Long Meadow, on the east side of the park. The largest is I oft. 6 in. in circumference, and n8ft. high. The park contains remarkably fine timber.

In all the earlier documents relating to Parkhurst prior to 1 8 14 it is described as ' a tenement and farm,' but after that year it takes the style of ' mansion.'

The celebrated scene in Bulwer Lytton's novel, My Novel, where Riccabocca is put in the stocks, is laid at Abinger Church, near Parkhurst, where the stocks are to be seen to this day. During Mr. Spence's tenure of Parkhurst he was visited there by the French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, who stayed with him some days, but being haunted by fear of spies fled in terror, having accidentally met the curate of Abinger, who he was persuaded was an emissary of the Government. Mr. William Bray, the dis- tinguished historian of Surrey, left some diaries which have been privately printed, in which the fol- lowing entry occurs: 'July 23, 1759. To the "Hatch" to dinner, Mr. Evelyn, Mr. Godschal, Mr. Bridges, Mr. Steere, Mr. Spence," Mr. Cour-

��fi Surr. Arch, Coll, rvii, 71. 8 Manning and Bray, Hitt. of Surr. ii, 136.

' Inform, from Lord Farrer.

��8 Leaden tablet found in the founda- tions inscribed Henry Pledge November 1 8, 1783. Tbit House was till.

9 Monument in church. 10 Ibid.

130

��11 Manning and Bray, Surr. ii, 136.

13 'Of Parkhurst, where Rousseau was his guest for some time.' This note is in Mr. Bray's handwriting.

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